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This year has been amazing. But, the last couple of years were the most difficult of my life. The most miraculous, wonderful, profound, and life altering things happened good and bad and I couldn’t be happier about where I am in life at the moment. I’m choosing to see all the good despite the difficulty and that alone is worth celebrating. I’m not depressed or anxious anymore. I feel at peace with the legal status of my former marital relationship. That’s a huge deal, y’all.

It took a while to get here, but I knew I would. I knew I’d reach the tipping point where I was too overwhelmed by the joy in my life to hang on to the sadness and resentment in the past. I set out to intentionally fill my life with joy, joyful music, joyful humans and relationships, joyful everything,even a joyful me. I took a step back and looked at everything with new eyes… eyes field with excitement and wonder instead of fear. A heart filled with courage and calm instead of longing and ache.

I took the path that spread out before me. The path that has twists and turns and dips and I have no idea where it’s going, but it’s MY path. That is SO exciting. I’ve accepted my life, my choices, my mistakes, and my joy.

The Universe is miraculous in that nothing is a coincidence and if you are aware, it puts events and people in your path with the purpose of helping you self actualize.

I was chatting with my BF/BP about re-lation-ships. Maaaan, the situations we humans put ourselves in with other humans can really be something else, ya dig? You row, row, row your little soul boat over to someone else and invite them aboard and look at all the waves you can make. We pick up barnacles and sea foam and all sorts of flotsam and jetsam like conditioned guilt and that horrible critical internal dialogue.

Ladies, I know you know what I’m talking about. We live with critical partners for so long that when we stop living with them we replace those external criticisms with internal criticism. We anticipate not measuring up. We second guess ourselves, even when we are “living in the present” & things are “good”.

You catch yourself washing your hair in the shower and your monkey mind is just running 90 to nothing, “they don’t like you because…..”, “you should have done this not that…”, “why didn’t you do this…” chatter chatter, bullshit chatter.

Time to stop all that and let. It. Go. Own who you are, flaws or no. Those perceived flaws, the things you “should have” done different or not at all…. no. Put that thought in the garbage disposal and puree it. Those things you did, that’s who you are in that moment. And if someone doesn’t like you because of it, oh fucking well. That’s totally ok. Do you still like you? Yes? Yes! Awesome. Keep being you. Keep living in the moment. As your awareness of self, of reality, of perceptions, as all that grows you’ll change. You don’t have to criticise yourself into forced “growth”. That’s temporary. Real growth is transformational. It’s sustained.

Now, can you say, “gosh, I don’t like this about myself, I should work on changing it.” Sure. If it’s really because YOU don’t like a habit you’ve gotten yourself into.

I have, admitedly, a habit of not talking very nicely to myself. So, when other people compliment me, I dispute them or doubt their sincerity. I have a harsh and uncompassionate voice for myself. But, I do love myself and that’s why I recognize that tone of voice is just a bad habit and that can change. But, do I want to change it so other people will like me more? Hell, no. I want to change it because I like me, and I would never intentionally talk to someone I like the way I sometimes talk to myself.

So, just own who you are in this place and stage of life. On this plane of existance. In this moment in time. Love yourself. Treat yourself like you would treat someone you love. You absolutely deserve it.

Today, someone I’ve known for a little while said to me “You’re just amazing, do you know that?” And my response was “That’s what people tell me? *shrug*” I wanted to ask why exactly she thought and said that…. And I mean that in a completely non-narcissistic way, and actually more of a slightly embarrassed, self-doubting way. People do tell me that, and I honestly don’t get it. I don’t know why they would say that. As I told her, I am just going about my life, handling my business as best I can…

But the thing is, lately, well, for a while now *ahem* blog absence….*cough* I’ve NOT felt like I was “handling my business as best I could”. In fact, I felt like I was letting it slide pretty damn badly. I felt like I was letting my kids down, letting myself down, letting my parents down. The only person who I didn’t seem to be “letting down” was the one person who really doesn’t have any expectations for me. So, there’s that.

But, letting myself down hurts most of all. (TIME OUT- mommy bloggers and helicopter parents would probably be FREAKING OUT right now that I didn’t say letting my kids down was the worst… but sorry, gotta be me first before I can be their mom) I try really hard to be authentic and unapologetic for who I am. But, do you know how hard that is when you are privy to so many lies, deceits, back-stabbings, and judgements?! Ohmygod. It is so hard. I just want people to be honest, to live with pure intentions. Why is that so hard???

I recognize that a lot of the reason is that people start to feel small and buried by their lives. Sometimes they want to feel like they are more so they tear down someone they can easily demean or degrade. It probably won’t be to that person’s face, but behind their backs to other people who are then complicit in that same smallness. I’m guilty of it, I know exactly how it happens. It’s so juvenile and petty. But yet I know grown women, and some men, who do it unabashedly. It’s the hiding and covering and being complicit to that smallness that bothers me the most. So many people write or talk about how they want their kids to stand up for who they are, who their friends are, etc, to be brave and kind and all those wonderful compassionate human qualities. And yet, I know so many ADULTS who do not stand up to the pettiness and nastiness of gossip & cattiness.

When I meet new people, it usually takes all of an hour for me to tell them my deepest darkest secrets, spill the beans on my past, and throw light on the skeletons in my closet. I feel like I’m doing them and myself several favors. 1) If you can’t handle these things about me, I don’t need or want you in my life. Not even a *tiny* bit. If you can’t handle me then you need to save yourself, quickly! 2) If you’re going to judge me, judge me for some real shit not some bullshit. I’ve dealt with and done some harsh things, if you are the type of person to judge, let me give you the strongest ammunition you could have against me… because 3) the worst parts of my life, also turned out to be kind of the best parts. The hardest parts were also the most character building, the darkest days were the most illuminating. Seriously. If you’re too closed off to get that, have a nice life. Really. It’s not cliche, it’s truth. If you DO get that, you are my kind of person and I want to know as soon as possible that you can relate.

I told a friend that I wished people would carry around signs or cards that explained their damage. We all walk around with these “perfect masks” on, like “oh hey, you’re normal. I’m normal. We’re all good.” But really, every single human being is damaged in some way. Some of us are healed and more whole than others, and that’s ok. Some people are raw, seeping, wounded souls barely crawling through life. That’s ok, too. Nobody is perfect. That’s ok! I think it would be so freeing for people to see that they aren’t alone in their brokenness. My friend disagreed. She thought it would be chaotic and crazy and scary and people would freak out over the lack of false security that the masks provide. Maybe so… But I think the masks and the little fibs about how not broken we are, and the cattiness about each other is all just living in fear of who we really are, or fear of who we could be.

It’s scary as hell living an authentic and audaciously loving life. Being open to the universe and what it will bring you is terrifying. There could be pain! There could be loss! There could be failure! Oh my God, there could be aliens! BUT There is also JOY, LOVE, HOPE, COMPASSION, INTIMACY, FRIENDSHIP, SUCCESS, GROWTH… real LIFE, not merely existence. I’m going to keep being terrified and alive and real.

So, is that what makes me awesome? Why can’t everyone be that kind of “awesome”? Where are all the other awesome people? I know a few. More than a few, actually, but I also know way more mask wearing shells walking around, thinking they are living (#yolo! ???), when they are just following the endless coursing stream of life that swallows them up and sweeps them into the void of existence. Could those shells ever be really fucking amaze-balls people? What do you think? What changes someone from being a shell to being a pearl? How are YOU making yourself and your life awesome? WHY are you, or are you not, living in the moment? What holds you back? What inspires you to push forward? I REALLY WANT TO KNOW.